In brief
- Six residency specialties receive completely rewritten curricula from 8 October 2026: allergology and clinical immunology; cardiology; diabetes mellitus, nutrition and metabolic diseases; endocrinology; endodontics; and psychiatry. The new texts take up 369 pages of the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) and are built on the European scale of autonomy levels, from the resident who only observes to the one who works alone, with support 20-30 minutes away.
- Who is concerned. Doctors entering residency from the November 2026 intake onwards, in the six specialties, train under the new curricula. Residents of the November 2025 intake and earlier stay on the curriculum in force on the date they entered residency, so nothing changes in their course.
- The length of training does not move; its structure does. Five years in allergology, diabetes, endocrinology and psychiatry, six in cardiology, three in endodontics. Recalculated module by module, the six programmes add up to exactly 348 months, with not a month more or less than each curriculum declares.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial al României), Part I, no. 846 of 8 October 2026, pages 15-16. Annexes nos. 1-6 are published in edition no. 846 bis of the same day, pages 3-371
In force from: 8 October 2026, the date of publication, because the order does not itself provide for a later date
From 8 October 2026, six of the specialties in which doctors train through residency in Romania have new curricula, written from scratch and put in place of the old ones. The joint order of the interim minister of health and of the Minister of Education and Research no. 1.102/5.537/2026 takes up two pages in the Official Gazette of Romania, but brings 369 pages of annexes with it, printed separately, in edition 846 bis of the same day. It is the second major rewrite of a medical training programme in 2026, after the one covering the curriculum plan for nurses responsible for general care, approved in September 2026.
The specialties affected are six: allergology and clinical immunology; cardiology; diabetes mellitus, nutrition and metabolic diseases; endocrinology; endodontics; and psychiatry. Five are medical specialties; one, endodontics, is a dental specialty. The legal mechanism is simple: Article I of the order takes each of the six curricula out of Annex no. 4 to Order no. 1.141/1.386/2007, the act that governs how residency training is carried out, and replaces it with the text of Annexes nos. 1-6 to the new order. The base act was published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 671 and no. 671 bis of 1 October 2007, so the amendment comes 19 years and 7 days after the original version, which has been changed several times in the meantime.
The part that matters for a resident is not in Article I, however, but in Articles III and IV. The first says that residents of the November 2025 intake and earlier, confirmed in the six specialties, carry on their training under the curricula in force on the date they entered residency. The second sends residents of the November 2026 intake and later to the curricula approved now. In other words, nobody is moved onto the new programme in mid-course: the dividing line runs exactly through the intake that enters residency in November 2026.
The order was issued by the Ministry of Health under no. 1.102, on 14 August 2026, and signed by the Ministry of Education and Research under no. 5.537, on 31 August 2026. By the time it was published, 55 days had passed since the first signature and 38 since the second. For the Ministry of Health it is signed, on behalf of the interim minister, by state secretary Stela Firu, and for education by Minister Mihai Dimian.
The real novelty becomes visible only in the annexes. All six curricula are built on the same skeleton, and that skeleton is European: the levels of competence and of professional trust defined by the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) through the concept of entrustable professional activities, abbreviated EPA. The scale has four steps, worded identically in all six texts. Level 1 means observer: the resident watches procedures in order to understand the clinical decision, without providing care. Level 2 means direct supervision, with the supervisor physically present. Level 3 means indirect supervision, with advanced autonomy and support reachable within a few minutes. Level 4 means care provided autonomously, with the supervisor reachable within some 20-30 minutes, in person or by telephone.
Each curriculum ends with the same two mandatory annexes: the requirements of the monitoring logbook for the specialty and the European Training Requirements used in drafting it. References to them appear dozens of times in every text: UEMS is invoked between 10 and 20 times per specialty, and the EPA levels between 77 and 131 times. In practice, the assessment of a resident shifts from the question „was the placement completed?” to the question „what level of autonomy has been reached in this activity?”.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is that a resident who enters one of the six specialties in November 2026 has, for every activity in a placement, a level of autonomy to reach and a place where it is recorded, the monitoring logbook. It is no longer enough for a placement to be ticked off as completed. The difference is above all one of proof: the level reached is written down, and the supervisor signs for it.
The second effect concerns durations and the structure of the training years. The curricula declare five years for allergology and clinical immunology, for diabetes mellitus, nutrition and metabolic diseases, for endocrinology and for psychiatry, six years for cardiology and three years for endodontics. The number of modules differs widely: 16 in allergology, 14 in cardiology, 14 in psychiatry, 11 in diabetes, 10 in endodontics and only 8 in endocrinology, so 73 modules in all. Added module by module, the durations close exactly: 60 months in allergology, 72 in cardiology, 60 in diabetes, 60 in endocrinology, 36 in endodontics and 60 in psychiatry, that is 348 months altogether.
The third effect has to do with where a resident spends those years. In allergology and clinical immunology, the modules in the specialty itself add up to 38 months out of 60, that is 63%, while the remaining 22 months are spent in internal medicine, paediatrics, dermatology, rheumatology, pulmonology, ENT, ophthalmology, emergency medicine, laboratory medicine and bioethics. In cardiology, the modules outside the specialty, from the 15 months of internal medicine down to the two weeks of bioethics, add up to 24 and a half months out of 72. At the same time, the cardiology curriculum requires every resident to begin training with 6 months of the module on clinical cardiology and non-invasive investigations, so the first contact is with the chosen specialty, not with the related placements.
The fourth effect is that some of the competences for which a separate course of training used to follow the end of residency now enter the programme itself. The curriculum for diabetes mellitus, nutrition and metabolic diseases states explicitly that it includes modules equivalent in practical outcome to certificates of complementary studies („atestate de studii complementare”, the Romanian add-on qualifications taken after specialist certification), and it names them: technologies for diabetes management, that is continuous monitoring sensors, insulin pumps and hybrid closed-loop systems; therapeutic education and self-management counselling; and clinical nutrition. They become a professional standard of the specialty. In endocrinology, the same logic brings endocrine ultrasound, a 3-month module, and paediatric endocrinology, 6 months, into the body of the residency.
The fifth effect is one of administrative workload, not of the resident’s. Two curricula will run in parallel for years: a new one, for the intakes from November 2026 onwards, and an old one, for the intakes up to and including November 2025. Since cardiology lasts six years, the last residents who entered in November 2025 will finish their training only towards the end of 2031, and in the other five specialties towards the end of 2030. Until then, universities and residency coordinators will work simultaneously with two sets of requirements for the same specialty.
The sixth effect shows up in money and in access. The operative part of the order, the one that takes up pages 15 and 16, is found in the ordinary edition of the Official Gazette of Romania no. 846, which costs 12.80 lei. The text that actually binds, namely the 369 pages of curriculum, is in edition 846 bis, printed outside the subscription, at a price of 558 lei. The ratio between the two prices is almost 44 to 1.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 8 October 2026, the six specialties were trained under the curricula in Annex no. 4 to Order no. 1.141/1.386/2007, with the amendments made in the meantime. The new order does not adjust things here and there. It takes them out whole and puts others in their place, and the formula in Article I reads, for each of the six letters, „se modifică și se înlocuiește”, it is amended and replaced. The result is that the old text leaves the annex in force and the new text enters in full.
What is new in substance comes down to three points. The first is the autonomy scale: the four EPA levels, defined word for word identically in all six annexes, replace a description of placements that said what was to be done but not how far on their own the resident had to get in doing it. The second is the monitoring logbook, raised to the rank of mandatory annex to the curriculum, with requirements specific to each specialty. The third is the explicit anchoring in the UEMS European Training Requirements, also set out in a mandatory annex, which gives a verifiable benchmark against which the Romanian programme can be compared.
The way the hours are written has changed too. Five of the six curricula declare their total budget of hours, and the figures turn out to rest on the same unit of measure: 2,420 hours of theoretical training and 5,280 hours of practical training in each of the five-year specialties, so 7,700 hours altogether, and 2,900 plus 6,340, that is 9,240 hours, in cardiology, which lasts six. Divided by the number of years, both come to exactly 1,540 hours a year. The difference in volume between cardiology and the rest therefore comes from the extra year, not from a more intense pace.
What has not changed deserves saying just as firmly. The order does not touch the Nomenclature of specialties, does not alter the list of specialties in which residency can be taken, does not change the rules of the entrance examination and carries no provision on the specialist doctor examination. Nor does it touch the other curricula in Annex no. 4, which stay as they were. And it moves no resident already in training onto the new programme.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- Sets, for every clinical activity, a level of autonomy to be reached, in place of a simple confirmation that the placement was completed.
- Ties the training explicitly to the UEMS European Training Requirements, set out in a mandatory annex to each curriculum, so comparability with other states becomes verifiable.
- Does not change the rules in mid-course: residents of the November 2025 intake and earlier stay on the curriculum in force on the date they entered, with no renegotiation of placements halfway through.
- Brings inside residency competences for which a separate later course of training was required, from diabetes technologies and therapeutic education to endocrine ultrasound.
- The declared durations check out: added module by module, the six programmes give exactly 60, 72, 60, 60, 36 and 60 months, with nothing left over.
- Raises the monitoring logbook to the rank of mandatory annex, so a resident’s progress has a fixed place where it is recorded and does not depend on the practice of each clinic.
What remains a problem
- The text that actually binds, 369 pages, is published in edition 846 bis, printed outside the subscription, at 558 lei, almost 44 times the price of the edition that carries the order.
- Publication comes 24 days before 1 November 2026, so the first intake to which it applies chooses a specialty almost at the same moment as the curriculum it will follow appears.
- Older residents are sent, by Article III, to curricula that have just been taken out of Annex no. 4 and are reproduced nowhere in the order, so the text applicable to them has to be looked up in an earlier version.
- The first transitional provision stops at the November 2025 intakes, the second starts from November 2026, and a possible intake in between is named by neither.
- Endodontics is the only one of the six curricula that fills in the total-hours box with percentages, 30% and 70%, instead of figures, so its training volume cannot be compared directly with that of the other five.
- In endocrinology, the same competence, paediatric endocrinology, appears both as a module included in the professional standard and as a certificate conditional on a further 6 months of training after the specialist doctor title.
- Two curricula run in parallel until towards the end of 2031 in cardiology and the end of 2030 in the other five specialties, and the order says nothing about how that overlap is to be administered.
Practical advice
- If you are already a resident in one of the six specialties and entered with the November 2025 intake or earlier, you have nothing to change: the curriculum in force on the date you entered residency stays yours, under Article III. Ask your coordinator for a copy of that text, because it has been taken out of Annex no. 4.
- If you are sitting the residency entrance examination for the November 2026 intake and are considering one of the six specialties, read point 2.1 of the relevant curriculum first, the one with the duration and the list of modules. That is where you can see how many months you spend in the specialty you chose and how many in other departments. In allergology, for instance, 22 of the 60 months are spent outside the specialty.
- Look in the curriculum for section 3.3, the one on modules similar to certificates of complementary studies. What is listed there you may practise once you obtain the specialist doctor title, with no separate training, and that changes the arithmetic of the years after residency.
- Open Annex no. 1 of your curriculum from the start, the one with the requirements of the monitoring logbook. Levels of autonomy are recorded as you go, not reconstructed at the end, and a logbook kept up to date is the only proof that you have reached level 3 or level 4 in a given activity.
- If you need the full text, ask for edition 846 bis of the Official Gazette of Romania, not edition 846. The first has 372 pages and costs 558 lei; the second carries only the order, on pages 15 and 16. Before paying for the printed edition, look for the curriculum on the Ministry of Health website as well, in the section on residency.
- If you are a residency coordinator or in charge of training, prepare for two sets of requirements in parallel in the same specialty, until towards the end of 2030, and in cardiology until towards the end of 2031. Residents from the old intakes and those from the new ones will be in the same departments, with different assessments.
Frequently asked questions
When do the new curricula start to apply?
I have been a resident since 2024. Does my programme change?
Which are the six specialties and how long does each last?
What do the levels of autonomy in the curriculum mean?
Does the length of residency change?
Where do I find the text of the curriculum that concerns me?
What happens to the certificates of complementary studies?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Annex no. 4 (the endocrinology curriculum), points 3.3 and 3.4, pages 273 and 274 of edition 846 bis. Point 3.3 is headed „Module de pregătire, similare unor atestate de studii complementare din cuprinsul pregătirii, care intră în standardul profesional și pot fi practicate urmare obținerii titlului de medic specialist”, that is, training modules similar to certificates of complementary studies, included in the training, which enter the professional standard and may be practised once the specialist doctor title is obtained; it carries two entries, endocrine ultrasound and paediatric endocrinology. Point 3.4, headed „Domenii adiționale de dezvoltare profesională în specialitate, prin formare specializată suplimentară (atestate de pregătire complementară existente în legislația MS), ulterior obținerii titlului de medic specialist”, that is, additional fields of professional development in the specialty, through supplementary specialised training (certificates of complementary training existing in MS legislation), after the specialist doctor title is obtained, opens its list with paediatric endocrinology as well: „Atestat Endocrinologie Pediatrică: pentru medicii specialiști sau primari în specialitățile Endocrinologie sau Pediatrie, care au efectuat pregătire prin cursuri și stagii practice cu durata de 6 luni, în centrele universitare medicale acreditate”, a certificate in paediatric endocrinology for specialist or senior doctors in endocrinology or paediatrics who have completed training through courses and practical placements lasting six months, in accredited university medical centres. The same competence is placed, at two consecutive points, under two regimes that exclude one another: once as part of the professional standard acquired through residency, once as a certificate conditional on a further 6 months of training after the specialist doctor title. The overlap is all the harder to ignore because module 7 of the same curriculum, paediatric endocrinology, lasts exactly 6 months. From the text it cannot be established whether an endocrinologist trained under this curriculum may treat endocrine conditions in children without the certificate or only with it, and the answer decides the right to practise.
Editorial analysis
The order solves a real problem, and solves it in the right direction. A curriculum that lists placements and topics without saying how far on their own a resident has to get in doing each thing leaves assessment to the judgement of each clinic. The scale of four levels of autonomy closes exactly that gap, and the monitoring logbook, raised to the rank of mandatory annex, gives it a backing on paper. It is a step that other medical training systems took more than a decade ago.
What does not show when the act is read from end to end is that the six curricula are not six independent pieces of work but six fillings-in of the same template. The definitions of the four levels of autonomy are identical word for word in all of them; each ends with the same two mandatory annexes, the monitoring logbook and the European Training Requirements; and the budget of hours, where it is written in figures, rests on the same unit. Allergology, diabetes, endocrinology and psychiatry each declare 2,420 theoretical hours and 5,280 practical ones, so 7,700 hours for five years. Cardiology declares 2,900 and 6,340, so 9,240 for six years. Divided by the years, both come to 1,540 hours a year, with no deviation. Cardiology has the same density as the rest and simply one year more.
The arithmetic check on the programmes comes out well, which is not to be taken for granted across 369 pages written by six teams. Added module by module, the durations close exactly on the declared figure: 60 months in allergology, 72 in cardiology, 60 in diabetes, 60 in endocrinology, 36 in endodontics and 60 in psychiatry. In diabetes mellitus, nutrition and metabolic diseases, where the internal medicine module can be taken along two routes of choice, a placement integrated into one department or rotations through separate specialties, both variants add up to 14 months, so the choice changes the place, not the duration. In endodontics, the module in the specialty proper takes up 22 of the 36 months, that is 61% of the programme, the largest share of all six.
The weakness of the act lies in the way the text reaches those who have to comply with it. The order was signed on 14 August and on 31 August 2026, but appeared on 8 October, 24 days before the start of the month in which the residency entrance examination is held. The candidate who in November 2026 chooses one of the six specialties is the first to whom the new curriculum applies, and has less than a month to read what awaits. And in order to read it, that candidate has to buy edition 846 bis, printed outside the subscription, at 558 lei, almost 44 times the price of the edition in which the order sits. An act that builds its whole mechanism on the transparency of the training path is therefore published in the least accessible form the Official Gazette of Romania has.
What should be changed
- Aligning points 3.3 and 3.4 of the endocrinology curriculum. As long as paediatric endocrinology figures both as a module included in the professional standard and as a certificate requiring a further 6 months after the specialist doctor title, no graduate of the new curriculum knows whether they may see children without the certificate. A correction that keeps the competence under a single regime would close the matter before the first cohort reaches the end, in 2031.
- A date benchmark instead of intakes, in Articles III and IV. As they are written, the two articles cover the November 2025 intakes and earlier and the November 2026 intakes and later, tacitly assuming that nobody is confirmed in between. A wording built on the date of confirmation in residency, rather than on the intake label, would cover both a supplementary session and confirmations through a change of specialty, without calling for an interpretative order.
- Express indication of the text that remains applicable to older residents. The transitional provision sends them to „curriculumurile valabile la data intrării în rezidențiat”, the curricula in force on the date of entry into residency, but those texts have just been taken out of Annex no. 4 and are not reproduced in the order. If the article named the act and the form in which they can be found, a resident from the November 2023 intake could check for themselves what is required, without depending on the coordinator’s archive.
- Filling in the hours box in the endodontics curriculum. It is the only one of the six that writes the percentages 30% and 70% in place of total hours, although the other five give figures. Without numbers, endodontics training cannot be compared either with the other specialties in the same order or with European requirements, and the box loses its purpose.
- Publication of the annexes in a freely accessible form, with an address cited in the order. The 369 pages are the standard a resident carries out day by day for three to six years. If the order pointed to a stable address on the Ministry of Health website, where the curricula sit in electronic, searchable form, the 558 lei of the bis edition would remain an option, not a condition of access to one’s own training programme.
- Publication well ahead of the examination session. A curriculum that applies to the November 2026 intake and appears on 8 October 2026 leaves no time for an informed choice. A minimum period, say 90 days between publication and the session to which it applies, would turn the curriculum into a criterion for choosing a specialty, which is what it ought to be.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Gazette of Romania no. 846 of 8 October 2026, pages 15-16 16 pages PDF, 359 KB the act starts on page 15
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.